Boston wrote on May 25, 2012, 01:20:Yeah this is a good Civ game to play if you've never played one before and don't know how much better the previous games were.

Nah. I was very very slow to warm up to Civ 5, and completely dropped it until around April when I decided to really give it another chance. The game feels great now, and I'm looking forward to the expansion pack.

I really like how the Diplomacy works. Okay, sometimes the AI's motivations are difficult to understand, but the simple mechanic of denouncements and declarations of friendship are great little touches that make it seem so much more alive than other 4Xs. Unlike Civ 4, the AI don't seem to pester you every other turn for favours that end up souring your relationship when you refuse them all, they're usually a bit more opportunistic, and blocs seem to form more naturally.

I really don't mind the one-unit-per-tile thing, and the late game seems to drag a lot less than Civ 4's. It's definitely a departure from the previous games, and I still feel that Civ 4(+BTS) has something to offer. However, since I've played said game a lot, Civ 5's novelty is itself a big advantage.

I bought all of the DLC last time it was 75% off. There are some that you can get bundled together to save even more than buying each individual one. One of them is Korea and Wonders of the Ancient World - Combo Pack. The weird thing is when I go to the Wonders of the Ancient World store page it doesn't say I own it, but it shows me owning every one of the others on their store pages. I know I have it, it's listed on the DLC tab of the game properties, and I have the wonders listed in the DLC in my game.

My most memorable game(s) are from Civ III and the first Civ. My favorite is Civ III, although V is a close second. With that new addon they talked about a while back, it could take the #1 spot.

I liked Civ IV, but something never really felt right about it. I liked the idea of religion, but it didn't seem to have much of an impact. I tried playing as a militant Buddhist civilization and wiping out any civ that didn't adopt my religion, but I couldn't stop other religions from infecting my own civilization. The AI seemed too passive and wouldn't start wars, and if they did they only lasted a few turns. I played a game once to see how long I could go without building a military. I think I got into the era with gunpowder before another civ decided to attack me. I switched all of my cities into military production. I lost three cities, then as soon as I repelled an attack, the civ came to me practically begging for peace.

Cutter wrote on May 24, 2012, 20:18:All intelligent and right-thinking people know Civ II was the best.

I'll probably grab the Vikings as that's the only one of the dlc civs that interest me. Looking forward to the expansion too. Civ is the one game that always remains on my hard drive and gets played regularly. I couldn't even hazard a guess at the sheer volume of hours I've played it over the years. Best money's worth of any game.

Heh, I still have my Civ II disk and played it recently a couple of years a go. That is the only game that made me stay up all night two nights in a row to play. God I was tired on Monday...

XCom and Alpha Centauri had me up all night a few times, but never in a row.

God I wanted to like this so badly. I really did, but at release it was a mess. It's playable now, but still too frustrating the play. Just took one game for a scout from a random neutral civ to block my entire army because I cant just move on the same space like civ 4. 10 turns later the scout did not move. So I had the choice of moving my entire army back the way it came and lose a good 20+ turns, or declaring war on a civ when I'm in the middle of a close war. I decided to uninstall.

Don't even get me started on the completely random civ ai that goes from loving you one turn to declaring war on you along with the entire world the next.

jdreyer wrote on May 24, 2012, 18:50:Yeesh, I still have Civ 4 unplayed in my Steam list. Should I skip that one and pick this one up instead?

NO! No no no! Civ IV is far superior to this one. The only reason to get this one is that the price is about right in my opinion. Civ V promised much and delivered not enough. I find myself always going back to Civ IV.

I'll probably grab the Vikings as that's the only one of the dlc civs that interest me. Looking forward to the expansion too. Civ is the one game that always remains on my hard drive and gets played regularly. I couldn't even hazard a guess at the sheer volume of hours I've played it over the years. Best money's worth of any game.

"During times of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

Everybody has their favorite Civ. Most commonly, II or IV, although I'm fond of III. I will say that I preferred IV to V when V first came out - it was really buggy and just had a lot of (IMHO) balance issues. I recently replayed it with all the patches and it's pretty darn smooth and near perfect these days. It's certainly more streamlined if that's a factor for you, and it is the first Civ with hexagons (which will likely be the future), so you're okay to skip IV as far as that's concerned. On the other hand, IV has some amazing features and mods/add-ons, and will play on lesser hardware.

tony wrote on May 24, 2012, 17:01:Do you mean pitboss? PBEM can be setup manually to be fairly easy. Just create a shortcut on your desktop to the saves folder, and email it to whomever after you take your turn.

There are a few of us from Blue's that do exactly that. It's disappointing that the game doesn't support multiplayer via-Steam Cloud though, especially as the singleplayer game supports it. Hopefully it's something they'll look to add in a future patch or expansion.